25th Anniversary of the fall of Berlin Wall

 

9th November 2014 - 25th anniversary of the fall of Berlin Wall

A stamp and souvenir sheet from Vatican City commemorate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.The names of 138 people who perished at the Berlin Wall are inscribed on this souvenir sheet from Vatican City.

2014 is a historic year for Berlin. It marks the 25th anniversary of the most significant event in recent German history: the Fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989. The wall stretched for 155km (96 miles) through Berlin but today only about three kilometers of it still stands.Within a year of its collapse, Germany - divided after its defeat in World War Two - was reunited.

 

Concerts and exhibitions are being staged in the city and Chancellor Angela Merkel will later attend a huge open-air party at the Brandenburg Gate. White balloons marking a stretch of the wall will be released to symbolise its disappearance.The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 to stop people fleeing from Communist East Germany to the West.Its fall in 1989 became a powerful symbol of the end of the Cold War. To remember the day many exhibitions and events will take place.

One of the main highlights  being held today, 9th November: Along the former course of the Berlin Wall a new temporary Berlin Wall will be built with thousands of illuminated balloons.

To the strains of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in the presence of guests of honour and eyewitnesses at the Brandenburg Gate and at six other locations, white balloons will be released into the skies on the night of 9 November to commemorate the peaceful revolution of 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall 25 years ago.

The fall of the Berlin Wall

The fall of the Berlin Wall during the night of the 9th and 10th of November 1989 marked a very joyous and unimaginable surprise for the inhabitants of East and West Berlin. For 28 years this border strip was strictly patrolled by technical and military means, dividing the city and conditioning the lives of its inhabitants. The Wall suddenly became passable even for the people of East Berlin as a result of the “Peaceful Revolution”. Beginning in 1975, the white wall of reinforced concrete visible from the west and the complex system of border fortifications became the defining image of the divided city, a symbol of the Cold War. The irreversible process of the city’s reunification began in the days following November 9th when the border troops of the German Democratic Republic, accompanied by jubilant Berliners, started to remove individual segments of the Wall to create more crossing points. Beginning in March 1990, before the German Democratic Republic began to remove the 45 thousand wall segments, Berliners themselves started the demolition process. Even the night the Wall was opened, they brought out their own hammers and chisels to start removing the first small fragments. In the autumn of 1990, the last sections of the Wall were saved to be kept as a monument. Today it is difficult to notice the past division of the city. Only a small section of the border strip and segments of the wall are kept as a historical monument inside the Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer street.

- Manfred Wichmann, Berlin Wall Foundation

Club News

New stamp and two FDI-postmarks on December 4th 2014 in Germany

A new stamp for the return of the Sea trout (Salmo trutta) in German
rivers will be issued on December 4th together with two postmarks FIRST DAY OF ISSUE in 53113 Bonn and in 10117 Berlin.

- Wolfgang Beyer,Vice Chairman of the german philatelic collector group ARGE ZOOLOGIE. Mail: Wolfgang.beyer1@aol.de.

Request from our reader

Mr Jean-Louis from Switzerland is looking for the stamps (overprinted) of the Indian Custodian Force in Korea, used on covers really sent to India by Indian Soldiers and cancelled with the FPO 739, 740 and 741. Please contact Jean-Louis Emmenegger at jl.emmenegger@gmail.com